


Kinktober Eleventh: Risotto

by KabochaKitsune



Series: Kinktober 2019 [11]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Kinktober, Kinktober 2019, Letters, M/M, Olfactophilia, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Scent Kink, Scents & Smells, Unrequited, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 16:43:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KabochaKitsune/pseuds/KabochaKitsune
Summary: If we run across each other, make me another plate of that risotto, will you? I swear I can still smell it, and neither of our chefs has half the talent you do.





	Kinktober Eleventh: Risotto

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=M).

> I'm not dead! I was a bridesperson in a wedding this weekend. So I guess it's more correct to say I've slept and am no _longer_ dead.
> 
> [That Kinktober Generator](https://corsetsandlemons.tumblr.com/post/187862017291/the100kinkmeme-hello-soon-will-be-the-holiest), Day 11: Olfactophilia.

_Hey, Sanji. Been a while._

Not the best opening to a letter. Gin sighs to himself, eyeing the pile of crumpled pages overflowing the trash can a few feet to his right. Enough. This one will have to do.

_Turns out you were right. I was following the wrong man._

How much of that story does he want to share in the first letter? How much is enough to just get the rest of it thrown out as the ramblings of an old enemy? Ugh.

Gin sets down his pen long enough to pick up his lighter and take a cigarette from the pack on his desk. He leans back as he lights up, blowing the smoke from the initial drag toward the ceiling. The burn in his lungs is comforting. The flavor is long familiar, but long nostalgic at the same time. Glancing back down at the packet, he chuckles before reaching again for his pen. There's something about the young man who wanted nothing more than to never enter the Grand Line, to stay home and safe, smoking a brand with a jolly roger on the box.

_Looks like you're following the right one, huh? That Straw Hat kid was right that he had no reason to be afraid of the Line. None of you do. You're gonna make it to the One Piece long before we do. I'm jealous. But I'm also on your tail._

_We're gonna meet again at some point. I'm no big fan of going up against Emperors, myself, so the plan is to outrun you. Life has its ways, though, and I wanted to ask you a favor._

He doesn't pen that Sanji's the reason he's in the Grand Line himself, now, more than halfway to Sabaody and planning several islands ahead wherever he can get the intel. That he hopes they do run into each other, more than hopes that his crew will gain and eclipse.

_If we run across each other, make me another plate of that risotto, will you? I swear I can still smell it, and neither of our chefs has half the talent you do._

_Be seeing you._

_Gin_

He doesn't expect a response. He doesn't expect anything. Hell, he spent two years convincing himself not to let himself go down this path at all.

But that stupid lovestruck face in Sanji's new bounty poster got him to laugh himself sick, and he wouldn't have been able to get his mind off the blond at all without doing this.

\--

A week later, when the news coo brings the paper, it also delivers an envelope with his name on it in neat, beautiful cursive.

His damnable heart does a flip-flop.

While the boys continue their work, he slips into his room with the paper and the letter. Spends the entire walk convincing himself he'll read the newspaper first.

Throws it onto his desk and flops into his hammock instead, slitting the envelope open neatly with a pen knife. When he pulls the letter out, it flops open with the weight of a notecard falling onto his chest. He picks that up and glances over it first, eyes slowly widening before he wrenches his focus back to the letter.

_Hey. Been a hell of a while._

_Gotta say, I figured you for dead after all that poison. Nice to learn I was wrong._

_You're not gonna get to the One Piece before us, though. Nobody will. I'll personally kick the ass of anyone who tries, you included. And I have a lot more ass-kicking experience under my belt now than last time we met._

_Just in case one of us dies before we run into each other, give that recipe to your chefs. I doubt they'll be able to make it half as well as I can, but maybe it'll at least tantalize your taste buds._

_If we do meet up, I'll make you a whole skillet of it myself. It'll be even better than last time._

_Don't get your stupid ass killed._

_Sanji_

Gin's heart is fucking racing.

He looks over the recipe card again, front and back. It's written in print instead of cursive, but so obviously the same hand, clear and neat and elegant, not the likes expected of any pirate. He can read most of what it says, but there's an ingredient he can't pronounce, certain instructions that sound like another language entirely. He wonders if his schmucks will even understand all of it. If they can't, he's gonna throw cookbooks at them until they can.

And god, he imagines he can smell the dish all over again -

...Wait.

He lifts the notecard to his nose, then the letter.

Both of them smell like risotto.

The letter smells like _Sanji_.

Seafood risotto. Death brand cigarettes. Whale oil shoe polish. The clean, bright tang of unscented soap.

Gin tucks the notecard back into the envelope, leans it carefully against the wall in the basket-shelf built in by his hammock. Behind last night's empty bottle; next to the broken-off tip of Krieg's spear. Then he sinks into his hammock and holds the letter millimeters from his face, closing his eyes and breathing deep.

_Damn._

He'll have to find an empty bottle to keep this in later. Cork it shut so the scent doesn't dissipate. ...Keep it by his bed, in all likelihood.

He presses his knees together in the meantime, half willing his body to still, half not wanting it to. He'll get back topside soon. Give him a minute.

**Author's Note:**

> I do plan to write more of this ship eventually. ♡ Have this for now.
> 
> Want to support what I do? Find me on other sites through my [carrd](https://kabochakitsune.carrd.co/)!


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